Notes

These notes are on various topics or interests. Most of them are related to: soil sciences, sustainable agriculture, plants, fungi, decomposition, gardening, food preservation, history, philosophy, carbon and nutrient cycling, history of science, philosophy of science, water, … I may add, edit or remove items at any time. You have permission to copy this list.

Part I:

Misc reading list and topics:
- Everglades (history, degradation and restoration)
- “People’s History of the United States:
1492 to Present” by Howard Zinn

Warning : Before doing any large scale water retention projects make sure to consult a soil scientist or civil engineer as retaining walls can fail if not properly designed – if they are uphill from your home or gardens that can be an expensive lesson.

Part II:

Items for further research from The Biochar Solution by Albert Bates or ideas that came to mind while reading:

India Farmer Suicides (and American, but no mention of American in TBS)

Jarod Diamond’s book “Collapse” (Guns, Germs, Steel is another of his often quoted works, I’ve not read either yet)

biomass smoke contains: benzene, butadiene, dioxin, formaldehyde, styrene and methylene chloride (to name a few), so clearly should be made in a closed system where those things can be captured instead of emitted

1 gram of soot warms atmosphere as much as 1500watt space heater running for a week (what about the kicked up dust from a dark soil if it was amended with biochar? comparable at what percentage? equivalent to percentage of carbon? or?)

horseradish tree, Moringa oleifera, drought tolerant, multipurpose, edible pods in 6-8 months after planting, more vitamin A and beta carotene than carrots, more calcium than milk, more iron than spinach, more vitamin C than oranges, and more potassium than bananas

Kafrin area of the Jordan River valley, 5 hectare farm started by Geoff Lawton (of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia) now discontinued as a formal project, another one with the same name has been started in a different location, meaning much confusion for those who are trying to find out what’s up with the original site. Greening the Desert II the Sequel. looks like it is coming along, providing shade even in such an inhospitable place.

Sahara Forest Project (Bellona) Oman

Groasis Waterboxx

Pioneer Forest Missouri

Nathaniel Mulcahy, WorldStove Haiti project

earth dumplings (tsuchi dango), seeds mixed with clay, manure and then tossed to reseed areas – good to know I wasn’t the only one to come up with this sort of idea (i thought of peanut butter filled with seeds put into hollowed out acorns and then using a slingshot – clays and manures being a much better approach 😄 )

Part III:

Notes from Dirt, by David Montgomery 2007

Darwin’s worm book, 2.5 inches of soil moved by worms in 30 years in an undisturbed field, ruins buried about .5 to 2 inches per century, found rate of soil moved was 10 to 20 tons per acre (already read)

isostacy, erosion may wear away what is up but the continents lift to replace what is lost, they float as they are lighter than the rest of the crust, only two inches per foot is lost, ten inches rise to replace

soil thickens until it reaches a balance between erosion and the rate at which soil-forming processes transform fresh rock into new dirt

cytosine and guanine form in clay-rich solutions (two of the four bases of DNA)

Younger Dryas 10,000 - 9,000BC, return to almost glacial conditions

Abu Hereyra, early evidence of agriculture

the shift to using animals as labor shifted the requirement for people

Man and Nature George P. Marsh, 1864

Rothamsted, John Lawes, comparison between organic and conventional 150+ years, yields of wheat within 2% of each other, but the soil in the organic plots had more nitrogen and carbon. many other studies

John Reganold, Washington State, comparison between two farms back to 1909, topsoil was six inches thicker on the organic farm. between 1948 and 1985 the conventional farm lost six inches of topsoil

conservation and no-till farming, 1960 almost all US fields were plowed. 1991 conservation and no-till farming 33% of Canadian fields, 2001 60%. US fields 25 1991, 33 percent 2001, no-till 18%, 2004 41% overall, no till 23%. still only 5% of cropland in the world is no-till methods

4 billion metric tons of carbon lost from the US soil in the past 150 yrs, 78 billion tons worldwide. 1⁄3 of added CO2 in atmosphere from soil

soil can take up 1% more carbon per ten years using no-till methods

300 million tons of carbon per year if all soils were no-till plus cover cropped

no till doesn’t work well every place. better in sandy or lighter soils, clay still gets compacted and needs deeper tilling

not as easily done in poorer countries which don’t have the special seed drills that can go through crop residues. or crop residues are used to feed animals or used for fuel to cook

Cenex (division of Land O Lakes) using toxic waste in fertilizers, 1995 case settled, p. 214-215 and an Alcoa division in Oregon converted wastes into fertilizers. eight major companies converted 120 million tons per year into fertilizers (by the late 1990s). it’s enough to make ya sick

Patrick Kirch, Tikopia, Mangaia and Easter Island comparison. success on Tikopia was likely because it was small enough that everyone knew everyone else…

Iceland was wooded, cleared and now overgrazed by sheep, p 227 picture of rofabard (topsoil)

Haiti vs. Cuba p.227-232, at the fall of the USSR Cubans lost 1 meal per day, but have since regained that but are still short of milk and meat (and are
probably healthier…)

2009 Wezel et al. Agroecology as a science, a movement or a practice. A review

Part V: Biosphere II

A project in the Arizona desert, which attempted to demonstrate that people could live in a closed system and sustain themselves. many lessons learned, very interesting ideas and technologies created for such a project with a fairly small amount of money considering what it would have cost the government… the human element was so challenging and critical with such a small group of people. very interesting views on the project in the following books, read them in order as they are all interesting explorations of this very unusual project and group of people.

Part VII: The Food/Nutrition/Diet Thing

Part VIII: Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Examples Through Time

Obviously the previous book in this list shows a prime example of how science when poorly done will derail things for a while, but as more becomes known the actual mechanisms for self-correction can still succeed. At least for now we know that we know the wrong things and more studies of the right kind are needed. The saddest points are that: 50 years have been wasted, many billions of dollars have been spent and millions of lives have been damaged.

Part IX: Water, Irrigation, Dams, Diversions, Restoration

I’ve been off on a water system thing lately with the extended drought in California I’m watching things flex and change and at the same time the continual need to balance human activities against what is needed by the ground and the other creatures we share this planet with.

Seems like I am looking at the various tragedies (Salton Sea, Aral Sea, Owens Lake, Mono Lake, etc.) and seeing how various water projects are constructed and the history around some of them. I also am following the dust mitigation effortsas that relates to reclaiming or restoring lands and reducing the impacts humans have had on an area.

Part IX: Afterwords

The summer and fall have gone by of 2015 and the drought has finally had a bit of a dent put in it. In the water year there were enough repeated small enough storms that most of the water could soak in and recharge the depleted reservoirs of CA.

In 2016 it looks like CA is going to try to put the tunnels under the delta area, which will be a large waste of money. There’s no more water available to put through those pipes. Such a large expense means they’ll have to justify running it as much as possible even when it will likely encourage more salt water intrusion into the bay. Considering what could be done with that much money for the rest of the system for doing projects with stormwater capture, recycling, desalinization, etc. it’s a huge opportunity being lost.

The 2016 - 2017 water year has started with a good series of storms. I hope they continue.

For other readings of interest in agroforestry I’ve enjoyed what I can understand of http://agendagotsch.com/ <– the king of chop and drop?

Also what I’ve found out about Sadhana Project Haiti and elsewhere in India and Africa. I put together a large montage of the Haiti area because it will be interesting to track progress of the project through time. I’m already amazed by what has been done. When you have little to no topsoil… Instead of using just lines of rocks to capture the rain flows and to help keep the topsoil from being washed away they’ve incorporated donated clothing which would otherwise be burned into their rock lines making them hold up even more topsoil and to soak up moisture. A good adaptation of an ancient technique!

I had a good (but also sad) laugh when reading the news about how the CO2 emissions will have delayed the next Ice Age by 100,000 years. The rate of resource depletion, pollution, environmental destruction, etc. going on that it’s unlikely there will be much of a civilization left by then. At times I am more hopeful and optimistic because I do see positive changes (like the CA groundwater laws, even if they will take many years to get going) and the continued work of various permaculturists, and agroecologists and restorative agriculturists, and laws which aim to improve the water, the air and the land. I just hope there is also room for the wild, for the open spaces.

Please continue to support clean air, clean water and clean land in any way you can! If you are a farmer every little bit less of pesticides and fertilizers you can avoid using is that much less damage being done to the ground water, your soils and to the creatures which live around that area (including me 😄 ).

Thank you for caring!

[Note to myself, I should probably break this into separate chunks. Eventually…]